Your child's amazing brain

Parents can play a major role in boosting their children's brain development.

Newborn babies may look as though they're just lying there drooling and crying, but their incredibly busy and efficient brains are working harder and better than they ever will again.

At birth a baby's grey matter already contains about 100 billion neurons, which are the brain's transmitting cells. By the age of three, those neurons have formed about one quadrillion neural connections – about twice as many as adults have.

During those first few years at least, it's now known that a child's brain is working overtime, creating vital connections that will form the scaffolding of their adult brain and determine how they will cope, behave, learn and survive. No wonder many scientists and researchers say those first five or so years of a child's life are crucial.

Nature versus nurture

Dr Margaret Brechman-Toussaint is a psychologist and the principal researcher at the Benevolent Society, which recently launched a pilot program, Shaping Brains, to help parents promote their children's brain development. She says while genetics obviously play a role in brain development, environment and experience are thought to have the biggest impact.

"It has long been understood that up to 85 per cent of brain development occurs in the first three years of life. How we interact with children during these years can determine how they learn and behave for the rest of their lives," she says. "We now know the brain is like a muscle – the more you use an area, the stronger it will grow."

Dr Brechman-Toussaint believes it's important all parents have access to information on the essential role they play in those early years.

Recent US research found children who are fitter tend to have a larger hippocampus and performed better on a memory test than their less-fit peers.

And Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child says: "The quality of a child's early environment and the availability of appropriate experiences… are crucial in determining the strength or weakness of the brain's architecture, which, in turn, determines how well he or she will be able to think and regulate emotions."

Four ideas for parents

Dr Brechman-Toussaint has these simple suggestions on how to boost children's brain development.

Create environments where children feel secure, attached and stimulated.

Don't just read to your kids. Trace over the words from left to right and talk about what the pictures say about the story.

Develop routines. The brain develops skills through practise and repetition.

Use conversation to extend their thinking. "Your conversations should be a bit like a tennis match where there is a long rally," Dr Brechman-Toussaint says.

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I have just recently completed a seminar on the development of children's brains and the importance of feeding and nourishing their brains with positivity, love and imagination. What an amazing thing, this story is well worth the read with handy tips as to how we can help to develop healthy brains for our precious children.

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